“Honey.” Silke stood up and stretched. Her body ached. She still felt as if she needed to lie down for a few hours with the covers over her head. “You know you can’t go without medical attention. You’re autoimmune. At least have Fenja examine you to ensure the baby is growing properly and you aren’t having any problems.”
Gesina twisted her fingers together. “Fenja has always been so good to us. She never charges money. She’ll take food from the garden or my canned food in payment, but it isn’t fair to her. She has bills to pay just like we do.” She hesitated and then made her admission. “I did call her when I got worried because I was so stressed. My bloodpressure was up. I didn’t tell her why I wanted to see her, but she asked if it could wait for a few days. I knew she wasn’t feeling good, so I assured her there was no hurry.”
“Why didn’t you call me? Fenja trained me, Gesina. I might not be the best, but I’m better than nothing.”
For some reason, that made Gesina smile. She gave a little shake of her head. “You’re every bit as good as Fenja, but you’re worse when it comes to taking compensation.”
Silke’s heart quickened. “I charge too much? You never said anything to me, Gesina. I would have been happy to take less.”
“You do an exchange just as Fenja does, for our products, but you have them delivered to various homes—not yours. You never actually receive payment.”
“Is that what you think?” Silke frowned at her. “Those families really need help at times, Gesina. I don’t can the way you do. You have fresh vegetables all year round. Food is the most important, sometimes more important than money. If either one of us gave them money, they’d pay other bills and go without eating. Times have been very hard for a few of the older villagers. I appreciate your always giving me fresh vegetables and canned food because so many need it.”
“I had no idea,” Gesina said. “We often have too many vegetables for us to eat. I would be happy to help. But that still doesn’t give you compensation for your work. You have bills like everyone else.”
“Fenja and I do fine. Come to the house this evening around seven. The tour should be over, and you and Milan will have eaten. If you prefer, I could drop by your house.” She made the offer, but she didn’t want to go out to their farm. It wasn’t a long distance away, but she needed to consult with Tora about how best to try to remove the demon from Raik. That problem needed to be resolved before they could bring him out of his induced sleep. She worried the demon would find a way to do more damage to Raik if they didn’t get the creature out of him quickly.
The problem was enormous. She was certain the serpent had beendesigned to continue evolving. She didn’t know if the original was the only one made that way or if its offspring would have the same traits. It hadn’t seemed like they did, but they were extremely young. It could be that they also evolved the longer they were alive.
“Milan and I will come to your house,” Gesina said. “Thank you for agreeing to do the tour. One of the things the head of the group especially asked about was the medicinal plants. Your garden contains the most of any of our gardens.”
A small frisson of awareness crept down her spine. A faint alarm fluttered in her belly. “This tour group specifically asked about medicinal plants?”
“They’re very interested in all the types of plants in this area,” Gesina confirmed. “Even poisonous plants. I told them we had a couple of experts who could talk to them.”
“Not me.” Silke was firm.
Gesina laughed. “I knew you’d say ‘absolutely not’ so I didn’t mention you. I know your dislike of lecturing. I wouldn’t do that to you. And you’re the busiest person I know. I asked both Ethel and Bart Terpstra to give the lecture to them. They love talking about local plants.”
Silke couldn’t help the feeling of relief. Ethel and Bart were great friends of Fenja. Silke had known them all her life. They could gossip with the best of them, but never about anything important. They kept private lives private. Bart was on the council of elders. He was one who firmly believed the villagers should always be prepared to protect themselves against Lilith. They believed that the stories handed down from generation to generation were more than just stories.
If anyone questioned them about Silke or Fenja, they would politely stonewall them. In fact, they would be very suspicious of anyone asking questions about the two healers. No one ever mentioned Tora to outsiders. If tourists caught a glimpse of her at night, they thought she was an outsider, a tourist wandering through the ancient town. She would quickly disappear and fade from their memories.
“Thanks for keeping me out of it,” Silke said. “And you’re right, Ethel and Bart love talking about the local flowers, plants and trees.”
“They have so much knowledge to share,” Gesina said. She laid her palm over her womb, where her baby was hopefully growing and healthy. “I try to talk to them a couple of times a week. I learn so much. Milan has a good relationship with Bart. They go fishing together at times. I usually take Ethel to lunch. I really enjoy her company.”
Milan came from a large family. His parents were still alive and thriving. He had a brother and sister and several cousins. Gesina, like Silke, had lost her mother early. Her father had died when she was seventeen. She had no grandparents. Milan’s family loved her and accepted her with open arms. Silke could hear the note of longing in her voice. She would have liked to have had grandparents, family on her side to share her child with.
Silke thought about how not having family would make her feel as Gesina began her trek across the meadow to return home. Silke only had Fenja and Tora. If she did marry this ancient man and had children with him, she had no idea where he would want to live. She wouldn’t want to leave Fenja or Tora, her only family, especially if she was going to have children. She hadn’t considered what it would mean to be tied to a stranger who came from a different land.
She once again began the process of planting the remainder of the starts she had in the buckets into the ground. She positioned them for maximum light or shade, drainage and the proper soil. She talked to them as she worked, whispering encouragement and love. As she did, the realization came to her that she might want children after all. For the last few years, she had convinced herself she wasn’t a woman who would be good in a relationship. She didn’t want to raise a daughter to be a demon slayer. That legacy had been handed down for generations from mother to daughter. Kneeling in the dirt, hands in the soil, whispering to her plants and the other ears and eyes in the forest, she knew she had been very wrong about herself.
After admitting to herself that she did want a husband andchildren after all, she knew she needed to decide what kinds of traits were important to her in a husband. What kind of marriage did she want? She had to decide those things before the stranger she was promised to arrived. She didn’t feel in the least bit indebted to him. Or as if she owed him a marriage. She was a demon slayer, and she guarded his soul. She did both things to the best of her ability. She had no problem with transferring his soul back to him without the least commitment of marriage on her part. It made no sense to her that she would have to do both.
She was not a woman who followed rules. She certainly wasn’t the kind of woman to marry a stranger and expect a fairy-tale ending. Her life didn’t work like that. Her personality would never accept most men into her life. She knew that with absolute certainty. From the time she was little, she remembered thinking she would be alone all her life. When she watched interactions between couples in the village, even those in really good relationships, she knew she was too different to share her life with a man.
Silke made her way back to the village while she contemplated her inability to deal with the opposite sex and their traits. She knew there were good men in the village, many of them. Raik was one. She desperately wanted to save him because he was such a good man, and he loved his wife and daughter. His laughter was contagious and booming. He made his wife feel beautiful, accomplished and loved. There were many men like Raik. But Raik was also the sole head of his house. She didn’t see the relationship between Raik and Imka as a true partnership. What was a true partnership? Was there any such thing? She doubted it. What did she want?
The house she called home was nestled in the middle of extensive gardens. Fenja had begun working to plant and transform her small estate the moment she had acquired the property. She’d poured more time and effort and money into the landscaping and extensive gardens than she had into the house. Silke had been the one to modernize the house.
Silke always took a moment to appreciate that first sight of her home. She knew she would never tire of it. The house was set right in the center of the land. The various gardens circled the stone house in rings, giving the appearance of colors and texture rising around what Silke had always considered a fairy-tale two-story house. Because the house was constructed of stone, vines and moss grew on the sides and in the cracks between the rough rocks. The roofline looked like the wings of a bird spread across the rocks in protection. A porch circled the house, front and back, with tall columns to support the overhang shading the verandah.
Because they lived so close to the forest and there were trees planted all over the property, Silke considered that with the abundant gardens and native trees, brush and wildflowers, they lived in a magical kingdom that extended across the meadow to the forest. As a child, she had lived in a world of dragons, fairies and other magical—mythical to most—elements.
She had grown up with a logical, responsible brain, but a fantasy heart. Over the years, she secretly maintained that childhood outlook on the world. She thought it was the reason she tended to connect with the children. She told wild stories they all loved. She laughed with them when she was a little more reserved around adults. She found young children hilarious. She loved their take on the world around them. They were full of insight and information most adults ignored. She found it strange that it hadn’t occurred to her that she wanted to be a mother. The interaction with the children should have tipped her off.
She walked up the path leading to the house, surrounded by the circles of plants, ferns and bushes. Just taking that path always gave her immense pleasure. Any care she had lightened or disappeared entirely as she approached the house. Moss covered the winged roof, with its three chimneys and the three very cool and whimsical bow windows jutting out from the upper story on either side of the house. Those rooftops were also covered in moss.
